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Chris -- 2018-04-11
A proto-Indo-European root word that looked something like sleg gave rise to our words slack, languid, and lax. By 1450, lax, from the Latin root word laxus, was being used to describe a lack of discipline. A lack, on the other hand, was a deficiency, the word stemming coming from the Germanic side of the family tree. You can see in the following examples how the leap was made from the adjective lax to the noun lacks. The verb lacks works too, but is a bit more tortured.
Resto review, Philadelphia:
Service at the restaurant was lacks; getting your drinks was a slow and tedious process.
(http://www.yelp.com/biz/phillips-seafood-philadelphia)
A foreigner rants in Hong Kong:
I had heard that people that were barred or deported from other countries came here because the security of a country that isn’t really a country was lacks.
(http://www.escapeartist.com/efam/90/art_taiwan.html)
US Air Force regulations:
AF Regulation 36-2903 states that your hands are to never be in your pockets. The AF is lacks on some professionalism appearance things.
(http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index … 522AA6yKDw)
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Those discussing “laxadaisical/lackadaisical” in 2006 didn’t think about this much simpler substitution.
As Pat says on the other post from today, bad spelling has to be factored in. There are a large number of hits for “relacks,” for example. The semantic rationale is for such a spelling is harder to descry. Even “exlacks” is out there on a several web pages. That’s strike one.
A second problem is the part-of-speech confusion that you mention. The eggcorner has to turn a word that is not an adjective into an adjective. That’s strike two.
But two whiffs are soon forgotten if the the batter lifts the third pitch over the right field fence. I think that this eggcorn proposal is a home run. In fact, I think it may be one of the rare flounder eggcorns. “Lacks” substitutes for “lax” in a great variety of lexeme contexts. Here are some more contexts:
Post on a real estate forum: “Good post. Our industry has lacks standards. It’s about time N.A.R. stepped forth and set minimum standards for Realtors. ”
Forum post: “I am in my hotel room. I am one of my nation’s heroes, but somehow I am in a hotel where security is so lacks that someone wanders into my room.”
Only a few web pages display the two substitutions above. The next two, however, are found on dozens of unique pages:
Blog post: “As a result many agencies have been lacks in providing clients with the dedicated focus that is needed to provide value to both clients and candidates.”
A mountain bike forum: “It’s pretty stupid for management to take such a lacks attitude.”
If I can find the ball, would you autograph it for me?
Last edited by kem (2009-08-11 22:57:56)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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